Anybody who likes going to the cinema has dreamed of stepping inside a movie one time or another, and finally a new exhibition at the Fondazione Prada in Milan makes this possible. Running until January 7, 2024, the “Wes Anderson – Asteroid City: Exhibition” immerses visitors into the creative universe of Award-winning American director Wes Anderson’s latest film, Asteroid City, which is set in a fictional rural town in the American southwest in the 1950s. Organized in collaboration with Universal Pictures International Italy, the exhibition brings together a selection of original sets, props, miniatures, costumes and artworks arranged in independent installations that reference key scenes. Accompanied with relevant audio tracks from the film, the installations allow visitors to follow its plot almost faithfully offering a deeper reading into loneliness and emotional repression, two recurring themes in Anderson’s oeuvre which in effect take on an existential bent.
Anderson is known for his highly stylized, visually resplendent films. His penchant for symmetry, bright pastel colours and planimetric compositions that make shots seem nearly two-dimensional imbue his work with a painterly sensibility, while his keen sense of detail, expressed through elaborate stagecraft, from costumes, props and set designs to lighting and make-up, adds to his “tableau vivant” effect. Such characteristics have made Anderson synonymous with a distinctive, instantly recognizable twee aesthetic, enabling his cinematic universe to enter the physical realm to work so well in reality.